[Reviews of works by George Cuvier].

Date:
[1830?]
Catalogue details

Licence: Public Domain Mark

Credit: [Reviews of works by George Cuvier]. Source: Wellcome Collection.

Provider: This material has been provided by the Royal College of Physicians of Edinburgh. The original may be consulted at the Royal College of Physicians of Edinburgh.

    1/38 (page 343)
    Great Britain, and the study of Zoology has recently begun to be placed on an equal footing with Mineralogy and Botany in the universities of England. We anticipate that the taste thus recently excited for the study in this country, will not be allowed to evaporate in mere admiration ; but that, in imitation of our continental neighbours, it will be improved, and directed to the proper means of advancing the interests of the science. In the mean time if we wish to view the study of animated nature in a form truly worthy of occupying a philosophic mind, we must direct our attention to the French school, where it has long formed a regular branch of academic education, and the exclusive subject of study of men of distinguished abilities and learning, and by no one has the science been more successfully cultivated than by the eminent author of the voluminous works announced at the head of this article. In attempting to lay before our readers a brief and impartial sketch of the scientific labours of M. Cuvier, we shall follow the chronological order of his numerous writings, that we may be enabled to trace the progress of zoological discovery during the last forty years, at the same time that we examine the merits of the successive changes this distinguished naturalist has intro- duced into the science. Within the period of M. Cuvier’s career all the branches of Natural History have been cultivated with increased ardour in the schools of Europe, and our acquaintance with the natural productions of the globe has been greatly extended by the rapid progress of geographical discovery, by the advancement of all the collateral sciences, and by the zeal and intelligence of European colonists and travellers in distant countries. The liberal aid afforded to science by the French government, and the consequent subdivision of mental labour among its cultivators in that country, have enabled the scientific of France to maintain an ascendency over other countries of Europe in those departments which necessarily required such aid for their successful cultivation, and particu- larly in Zoology, one of the most expensive of all the physical sciences. The Menagerie of the Jardin du Roi and the Museums of Natural History and Comparative Anatomy at Paris, which have grown for more than a century, have long surpassed those of every other country of Europe in their extent, elegance, and richness; and, in the extensive means of comparison which they thus present, they afford an instrument of investigation in the study of Natural History, superior to that enjoyed by any other country. These magnificent collections, which owe much